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The Health and Human Services Department is vowing to fix glitches plaguing the federal health care exchange websites that were launched Oct. 1.

In an Oct. 20 blog post, the department acknowledged that the experience for many Americans has been “frustrating” and problems have ranged from log-in and registration problems to slow web pages and confusing error messages.

“The initial consumer experience of HealthCare.gov has not lived up to the expectations of the American people. We are committed to doing better,” the agency said.

HHS said the component of the website that checks health plan eligibility and tax credits is functioning and the agency has been working around the clock to improve and upgrade the user experience.

The agency blamed the problems on an unanticipated amount of web traffic. HealthCare.gov received more than 19 million unique visits since Oct. 1.

HHS has continued to add capacity and install software updates and patches to fix log-in issues and will be conducting website maintenance every night to continue to improve its operations, according to the agency

“We’re also putting in place tools and processes to aggressively monitor and identify parts of HealthCare.gov where individuals are encountering errors or having difficulty using the site, so we can prioritize and fix them,” the agency said.